I have to stop entering these things. They end quickly, and they end badly. For readers not familiar with the concept, one-flies are tournaments run for charity, and each angler gets one fly, and on fly only. Not one pattern, but one fly. If it goes in a tree, falls apart, or has the hook break on a bad backcast that ticks a rock, you are done. The object is to get the most points before something bad happens, and you get points by catching fish, with bigger fish usually worth more.
This one was organized by Schultz outfitters in Ypsilanti, MI as a benefit for the Huron River watershed council (HWRC). This is one of the most progressive watershed councils in the Nation, and they do things that range from stonefly searches (stones are good environmental indicators) to helping the cities of the watershed adapt to climate change. They have real scientists and everything.
So we went to a fun party, and got up next morning to win, and win big. My fishing partner was my wife, and we had long discussions about strategy. We decided that since we were a team, I would go low and slow with an indestructible kevlar tied crayfish pattern, and she would go on top with a surface fly- a gartside gurgler. After mayhem, photographs, and getting acquainted with some new Huron River anglers, we set off bound for glory. I decided to fish in downtown Ypsilanti, where we used to joke that there was bass under every shopping cart. In part thanks to HRWC this is no longer the case, at least the shopping cart part.
Fishing sucked, at least where we were. First spot produced one rock bass and teeny tiny long release smallmouth. Departed for greener pastures at a honey hole that had given up, on average, a dozen prize winning bass each trip every time I had fished there. This was not to be the case that day, and after an hour and a half I was surprised by a single 9 inch bass that was a full inch above the minimum size for entry.. Feeling good about not finishing dead last, I worked down to the first deep run of the morning (the water was record low and pretty clear) and dead drifted Mr. indestructible crayfish down a slot. The line stopped, and I thought I was snagged up until the snag tried to jump and throw the fly. Not a 20 incher, but big enough so that when he jumped he could not get completely out of the water. Two runs, got him on the reel, and then of all things, the line goes slack. I reel in only to find a flyless leader with the telltale curlicue of a knot that has pulled free. I was done. I thought back to that knot, and had stopped mid-tie when someone asked me a question. The improved clinch knot turned out to be only a clinch, and a bad one at that.
I was disheartened and had to think hard about the real purpose of the day which was to benefit the river. HWRC is unusual in that they are an "environmental" group that interacts successfully with anglers. Very few environmental groups get along well with the "hook and bullet" crowd, but everyone I know loves them. That is saying something. Despondent, I reviewed the rules that allowed teams to share rods. I made my wife give me her rod and fly, and proceeded to be vindicated with a 12 incher, thereby securing me another step up from dead last. However, she figured out my strategy quickly and I was called out. We gave it our best shot, and after an hour in the 90 degree plus sunshine with only rare and desultory nosing of the topwater flies it boiled down to two choices: 1) drive 20 miles upriver to really good spot where they were sure to be biting and have a shot at placing, or 2) go to an air conditioned bar within sight of the fly shop HQ just down the street. Bar won, unanimous decision achieved in seconds.
Just wait until next year.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Mr. Gar says "hello!"
We need a break from fly fishing. This week's trip was canned at noon due to unseasonable heat and malaise, and it wasn't worth talking about.
I once collected a gar for an ichthyology class, and the preservation went bad, except for the head which got sort of mummified. This became "Mr. Gar" and he became a family tradition. Mr. Gar had a knack for showing up anywhere and everywhere: my mom's floral centerpieces during formal dinners for stodgy relatives, looking out of the ice ring in the punch bowl, as a Christmas ornament, and even a wedding cake where his little jaws embraced the bride. That appearance didn't last long, but he was moved to a place of honor looking out over the crowd from a champagne glass placed on the bridal party table. My favorite part of this was that my mom became wise to his appearances, and would try to find him before her dinners. But he always found a way to join the party. When my mom would spy him peaking out of the flowers, we kids would all shout in unision "Mr. Gar says Hello"! She would get royally pissed off at us, which was the main point. However, she changed her mind and started including him in the arrangements herself, and would usually place him looking out at whatever family member had given her a hard time recently. Let this record reflect that his wasn't ALWAYS pointed at me. Over the years, Mr. Gar became part of the family, and was included in many venues. He would travel to reunions, weddings and the like ensconced in his own travel box, or later hanging from the rear view mirror in a fine Christmas ribbon, shown above. Once he was lost for over a year, and everyone felt sad until he was rediscovered hiding among the christmas ornaments.
Mr. Gar has appeared at four weddings (OK, like only two were mine): Two marriages ended in divorce, the others are happy. The unhappy marriages were typified by horrified reactions to Mr. Gar, subsequent banishment, and forcing him to live in a box in the basement. The happy ones occurred when the new spouse greeted Mr. Gar with affection and subsequently included him in family gatherings. I have long thought about the divination powers of Mr. Gar, and have considered renting him out to recently engaged individuals who have secret reservations about their husband/wife to be. But to exploit such a noble species for profit would be wrong. And if word got out, a serious trade in gar could ensue and contribute to their decline.
Mr. gar is quite worn, and had a bad encounter with the little Hiatus (the rat terrier puppy introduced in an older post) but I have such respect for gars I have been reluctant to kill another. He is, however, somewhat worse for the wear as is any object smaller than a bus that has spent more than five minutes alone with a rat
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Carl Hansen and the glass minnow
Carl Hansen was a fly angler from St. Petersburg, FL. He is known nationally as the inventor of the glass minnow pattern. Carl fished the saltwater flats near Tampa Bay, and had a unique approach. Envision a Tampa Bay fly fishing club outing. O dark thirty, and about 50 guys with the latest incarnation of graphite rods, Abel reels galore, and flats boats warming up at the launch ramp. Everyone up the night before tying the latest trendy fly patterns. Madness and mayhem as everyone headed out to be the first one on "big snook flat" or wherever they thought they needed to go given the tide, temperature, barometer, season, and latest guide reports.
Carl would sit there at the picnic area, wait for the sun to come up so he could tie up a few bend back glass minnows. Aluminum foil, mono overwrap for the bodies, a bit of bucktail, and red thread for the heads. No cement, a cheap vise that probably came from Herters in 1955, and I think he did own one pair of sewing scissors. He would then string up a 7 foot cane rod (a three weight, no less) with a reel that I believe was made in 1917- the year may not be right but it was given to him as a kid and he was about 80 years old when I knew him.
He would then wade out in front of the picnic tables up to his knees, and no deeper. He would then cast back to shore. Although he could cast like no one else, most of his casts might be 30 feet. Each cast would last a couple minutes and he would move the fly continuously in little twitches or with a hand twist retrieve. In 2 or 3 hours he might move 30 feet. About noon, all the young guns would come flying back to the launch ramp for the picnic, and you know how this ends. Carl would have caught more fish than the rest of the club combined. His explanation was simple: his fly was in the water, and the glass minnow moves exactly like a real baitfish. Predators move, so most of the snook, seatrout, and redfish in Tampa Bay would pass by him at some point in the morning, and would encounter a fly that looked and moved naturally that was actually in the water when they cruised by.
Carl was an amazing guy- he and his wife Esther had a casting clinic that met once a week at their house for over 30 years, and historians will correct me that its tenure may have been much longer. He did get some recognition of his skills, and was often asked to tie flies at Florida heritage festivals. He could put a fly in a teacup at 30 feet every time you asked him to do it. No BS, every time, and none of this false casting to get the distance right. And this was not hyperbole. The club had casting contests, one of which was a teacup at 30 feet. I saw it. He fished until the very end of his life, and when the end came he went out like the man he was. He told his family and friends that he did not want a funeral. He said that anyone who gave a damn about him should take a child fishing.
The glass minnow:
Use a pliers to bend a hook bendback style. Most people bend it too far. Don't.
Wrap a bit of foil around the hook shank below the bend.
Take a piece of 8 to 12 lb. mono, and wrap it over itself using a snell knot. It takes some practice, but you will end up with shiny foil body protected by mono wraps.
Tie in a sparse bucktail wing. I think that white over greenish blue was Carl's favorite, but he also felt that any color would work. It has to be sparse. Carl would have corrected my wing as resembling a feather duster.
That is it.
Fish the fly over any seagrass bed, bottom discontinuity, or structure. Move it slowly so it crawls along through the water column just above the grass. Expect the unexpected.
Carl would sit there at the picnic area, wait for the sun to come up so he could tie up a few bend back glass minnows. Aluminum foil, mono overwrap for the bodies, a bit of bucktail, and red thread for the heads. No cement, a cheap vise that probably came from Herters in 1955, and I think he did own one pair of sewing scissors. He would then string up a 7 foot cane rod (a three weight, no less) with a reel that I believe was made in 1917- the year may not be right but it was given to him as a kid and he was about 80 years old when I knew him.
He would then wade out in front of the picnic tables up to his knees, and no deeper. He would then cast back to shore. Although he could cast like no one else, most of his casts might be 30 feet. Each cast would last a couple minutes and he would move the fly continuously in little twitches or with a hand twist retrieve. In 2 or 3 hours he might move 30 feet. About noon, all the young guns would come flying back to the launch ramp for the picnic, and you know how this ends. Carl would have caught more fish than the rest of the club combined. His explanation was simple: his fly was in the water, and the glass minnow moves exactly like a real baitfish. Predators move, so most of the snook, seatrout, and redfish in Tampa Bay would pass by him at some point in the morning, and would encounter a fly that looked and moved naturally that was actually in the water when they cruised by.
Carl was an amazing guy- he and his wife Esther had a casting clinic that met once a week at their house for over 30 years, and historians will correct me that its tenure may have been much longer. He did get some recognition of his skills, and was often asked to tie flies at Florida heritage festivals. He could put a fly in a teacup at 30 feet every time you asked him to do it. No BS, every time, and none of this false casting to get the distance right. And this was not hyperbole. The club had casting contests, one of which was a teacup at 30 feet. I saw it. He fished until the very end of his life, and when the end came he went out like the man he was. He told his family and friends that he did not want a funeral. He said that anyone who gave a damn about him should take a child fishing.
The glass minnow:
Use a pliers to bend a hook bendback style. Most people bend it too far. Don't.
Wrap a bit of foil around the hook shank below the bend.
Take a piece of 8 to 12 lb. mono, and wrap it over itself using a snell knot. It takes some practice, but you will end up with shiny foil body protected by mono wraps.
Tie in a sparse bucktail wing. I think that white over greenish blue was Carl's favorite, but he also felt that any color would work. It has to be sparse. Carl would have corrected my wing as resembling a feather duster.
That is it.
Fish the fly over any seagrass bed, bottom discontinuity, or structure. Move it slowly so it crawls along through the water column just above the grass. Expect the unexpected.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Rocket Bass
Most of my readers (that number being 3) have figured out that I spend most of my time chasing smallmouth bass. Well, if you live in SE Michigan and do not feel like driving 3.5 hours for trout, that is what you do. We here in MI catch a lot of rock bass while pursuing smallmouths, and most anglers view them as one step up from a speeding ticket. They inhale flies so you have to stop fishing and pull out the hemostats, they give a might tug like a trophy smallmouth then roll over and play dead, and they are of a size that you can't grab them by the lower jaw. This results in at least one really good fin-prick every trip. They are despised and "don't count" for many anglers.
Everyone is wrong. Rock bass are cool. They give novice partners great practice at fishing cover (where you always find them), they cooperate during fly fishing clinics when the bass are thumbing their noses at you, and they create positive memories of otherwise sparse days. They tend to lie doggo in very specific spots, so when you get on to them it is a great chance to tell you buddies that you had a 50 fish day. I once caught over 30 from a single backwater the size of a pool table, and stopped only when it got so repetitive that I had to move on, having punished the species enough for one day.
The rock bass also provided me with one of my coolest experiences ever. I was casting a small popper, and hooked a good-sized one that would have been an absolute keeper for any panfish angler. When I got it within 10 feet of the rod tip, the line just sort of stopped and thought that it had darted under a log or something. Instead, the "snag" started circling and I spotted the largest smallmouth I have ever seen, ever. It had inhaled the rock bass completely (did I mention that this was a good sized rock bass) and we were at a standoff. The bass would not let go, but I could not hook the bass because the popper was, of course, deep within the jaws of Mr. rocket bass and the hook wasn't exposed. This went on for quite some time. Every once in a while the bass would lose the rock bass only to grab it again. The smallmouth finally got bored with this and sort of lumbered off to the trench. This occurred on a river where an 18 inch smallmouth gives you bragging rights for weeks, and 20 inchers are an urban legend. This fish was 25 inches at least, and probably weighed over 6 pounds. Only a bass that size could inhale a 6 inch rock bass repeatedly and make it look easy each time I saw it happen. I did release the rock bass, but it was not a happy rock bass and probably spent the rest of the summer growing new scales.
The rock bass in the photo above was caught last week, and until I got it to hand I thought it was a decent smallmouth. About 12 inches, and twice the size of the usual "nice rock bass" you hold up for your fishing partner to admire. Of course, no tape measure so a chance at a Michigan master angler rock bass certificate was lost. It made me cry inside. Note to self, add tape measure to gear list, and also pick up one of those cutesy Simms fish counter things that you always thought were stupid until you realized that no will believe the abundance of this species until you have some real numbers.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Lake Huron Bassin'
It is just like fishing the flats in Florida or the bahamas, except there are no stingrays to puncture your feet, no sharks or stinging jellies, and if you get dehydrated you can bend over and take a drink.In some cases you can wade a mile offshore before it gets too deep to cast effectively. But knee deep is all you need.
So we showed up at a well known spot, and waded out. A fly fishing club had beaten us, and their anglers were all in a giant circle whipping a boulder field to a froth. There are three ways of fishing here: you can cast to rocks, you can cast to fish, or you can blind cast to channels and the edges of rocky bars. The rock casting approach works well, but it has the inherent problem that in nearly every case you are fishing an active spawning bed. In the Great Lakes, this is bad because studies by Jeff Steinhart of Lake Superior State University have shown that even when the bass is released, by the time it gets back to the nest the invasive round gobies have swarmed in and eaten most of the eggs or fry. So it is best to look for cruisers, or fish the edges. I have cast to fish on beds, and will fish that way if nothing else works or I have a novice partner who really needs to catch a bass. But the cruisers are actually more fun and good practice for bonefish and redfish because you are casting to a moving target. Harder than it looks.
I quickly became king of the lost fish and missed four in a row. Blind casting did nothing, and it dawned on me that every fish I had hooked was seen first, either meandering along the bars or chasing minnows up on top of them. So we formed a line and worked shallow to deep. A pod of fish swam right between us and we each got a couple before they wised up and vamoosed toward the stygian depths. This went on for a while with pods coming and going, but then it sort of died. We decided to try a different spot a couple of miles down the road.
The new place was different: smallmouths everywhere: tailing in pairs as they spawned, milling around by each rock, singles cruising in water barely deep enough to cover their dorsals. We loafed down the shoreline and came to an ancient rock spit formed by some fool who thought that stretch of the coast would make a darn good harbor. Next to it there is a deep bowl shaped depression filled with massive boulders that I call Stonehenge. Normally Stonehenge is submerged and armpit deep, but with the low water this year it barely reached your waist. There was a pod of bass sitting in the middle of the thing that had at least 100 fish. They were obviously feeding. It was one of those things that you know you are going to pay for because on some level it is morally wrong to catch that many fish. Every cast resulted in a phalanx of bass following the crayfish imitation, and one would dart forward and inhale it. I had debarbed my fly, and if one threw it on a jump another would grab it when it fell back in. The best part was when I decided to see if they would hit a streamer. Tied on a bucktail emerald shiner pattern, debarbed it, and tossed it out into the center of the bowl. I looked down and saw my hemostat sitting on top of the chest pack, so I put the rod under my arm as I stuffed it into a compartment. Looked up, and the fly was floating motionless on the surface. A fish leaped out of the water to inhale it, and that question was answered. They actually seemed to like the streamer better, if that were possible. This went on and on and on until they finally all got bored with us and left for hot sex in the shallows. I lost count of the number of fish we caught, but realized that you can't have a 50 fish day up there because it takes a long time to land 16 inch fish, and after a while your arm gets tired.
We got a couple more out deeper, but the wind got higher and there were no more big pods to be seen. We even waded out to the edge of the deep blue, but the only thing we saw were Ohio-class common carp and they were having nothing to do with the likes of us.
The epilogue is as strange as can be. I tipped a good friend who lives to fish that area. He got there 24 hours later. The winds had shifted 180 degrees to the north, and the flat was barren as my checking account the day before payday. Not a fish in site, empty beds, and I think he got one fish the entire day. I will be up there again in a few weeks. Spawning will be long over, but there will still be fish out a bit deeper, and the carp will be cruising around in huge pods. Not to mention freshwater drum and the occasional channel cat. Flats fishing at its finest, and way cheaper than a ticket to the Bahamas to fish for bunch of snooty bonefish that remind me of a marine version of the white sucker. Michigan rocks.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The two minute muzzleloader hunt, or an idiot takes up muzzleloading
I am the worst deer hunter in the world. There are a couple reasons for this, among which I never took it seriously. I thought that it was really about dumb luck, and not about skill. I tended to buy a license the night before, and sort of throw together some gear. This changed somewhat as I got to know skilled hunters, and I shot a few deer over the years. But never a decent buck. The one buck I took in a late season hunt was a running shot at 50 yards, and by the time he went down he had shed his antlers and there was no finding them in the deep snow.
I moved back to Michigan in 1998, and promptly shot a doe the first time out because I was hunting with my fried Mike B., who is a wildlife biologist and set up our strategy. He then moved away and I went deerless for years. Fast forward to 2010. I vowed that this would be the year, but the night before the opener my stepdaughter decided that she wanted to try deer hunting. We actually saw three, but she became frozen solid by about 1000 and that was it for the opener. I hunted pretty diligently that season but saw nothing. When it was over, I was not ready to quit, and vowed to get a muzzleloader to extend the season into December. In Michigan our firearm season is November 15-30, and muzzleloader starts on December 2 and runs almost to Christmas.
The 2011 opener was the antithesis of my prior hunting. I had gotten to know Dave D., and he is one of the best hunters I know. He can find game anywhere and anytime he hunts and became my guide. I had a tack driving shotgun, excellent gear, and I had learned how to pick a stand that deer liked, and not one that I liked. And best of all, I had a muzzleloader. It was a lightly used Thompson encore that I had picked up over the summer, and it would be my fallback if the firearm season did not pan out. I even got load data and some sabots that looked like the gun should have been advertised in a field artillery forum rather than the "used guns for sale" website.
The 2011 firearm season was a bust. We hunted public land in SE Michigan. The opener had too few hunters to push deer, and fog. No one saw deer, but there was enough pressure to push them into the puckerbrush, unharvested corn on private lands, and the odd places that no one could get to without spooking them from a hundred yards out. We did stands, swamp hunts, ridge hunts, pincer movements, still hunts, and every other trick known to deer hunters to no avail. We did see one buck that jumped into the swamp rather than moving in one of the any other directions that would have offered a shot, and I missed a small buck that popped up in front of me as I was huddled in a fetal position in the rain trying to stick it out for just a few more minutes before throwing in the towel. The season ended with a whimper, and not even a sighting during the last week.
The muzzleloader season started the following Friday, and of course I was back at work trying to catch up from all the time I was not in the office. And there was another issue: despite my best intentions I had not done a thing with the muzzleloader other than go to Cabelas and have the helpful hunting guy point to stuff I needed. OK, I did have some powder charges weighed out, but had never even loaded the thing. I decided to sleep in on Saturday, but woke up at 0400 out of what had become habit. I thought about the muzzleloader sitting on the workbench and decided that it needed to be used otherwise my wife might start to question its purchase. The following timeline is true and accurate, and the events will be reported with integrity as they actually happened.
0500 decide to load the gun, and wonder how hard to actually push the sabot into the barrel. Is it all the way in? How hard are these things supposed to seat?
0600 breakfast, coffee, sloth, stumbling around trying to find gear. Take muzzleloader jiggery pokery out of shopping bag, look at it, etc.
0700 arrive at the state game lands. Note that the woods resemble a sea of blaze orange and there are more guys out with muzzleloaders than on the opening day of firearms season.
0705 Arrive at the one place where I had seen deer, only to find it filled with pickup trucks and guys with muzzleloaders.
0715 Legal shooting time begins. I am, of course, driving around aimlessly.
0730 I am still driving around looking for a pulloff that I can get the little fish car into without getting stuck in the 4 inches of new snow.
0745 Find a bare spot that I can pull into. A place I had never hunted.
0800 Finally start hunting after figuring out the primer thingy, reorganizing pack, locating accoutrements and possibles, and deciding which way to head in.
0801 Set off car alarm as I try to lock the car, letting every deer within miles know that something is up.
0802 work my way about 150 feet into the woods, get tangled in a mass of autumn olives. Really cloudy and dark, so decide to stand there for 15 minutes until it gets light enough to look for a proper stand. Only shooting lane is a narrow keyhole between two giant cedars down at the edge of a wooded swamp.
0802:30 Totally wishing I had not had that extra cup of coffee. Decided to wait it out a bit longer.
0803 Hear a noise, and turn to see a squirrel. Immediately notice a 6 point buck walking along the edge of the swamp behind said squirrel. Realize that buck may walk between the cedars. Gun up, hammer back, deer sashays into the dark opening about 30 yards away.
At this point, it was the strangest thing. It happened so fast that I had no chance to get buck fever. I squeezed the trigger, there was a recoil, and I see the deer go flying sideways and crumple into a heap. But there was no smoke! I thought that the primer had not ignited the charge, but there in front of me is a dead deer. I had not realized that Blackhorn 209 is a smokeless propellent.
0803:30 Violate every rule by not reloading and charging down to the now dead buck. It dawns on me that this is a nice buck, and my days of patterning my life after Escanaba in the moonlight are over. Pretty much have to sit down and stop hyperventilating for a couple minutes. A true 6 point with no brow tines and a big body. Not bad for the most heavily hunted public game land in the State of Michigan.
Tag deer, field dress deer, drag deer 75 feet to the road, and get the car which is only 100 feet further down the road. At this point it dawns on me. The little fish car is VW sportwagen with a panoramic sunroof and a teeny roof rack that can support about 150 lbs. This deer weighs more. I had honestly never considered that I would get to this point. Call wife for assistance and a big drop cloth, she is game but prefers to have nothing to do with this unless all other strategies fail. Finally realize that I can boost it in upside down with the old mouse-chewed vest put into service as a sacrificial garment to prevent leakage. Drive home in triumph, then on to deer processor. Call everyone on my cell phone, post to facebook, etc.
1200 Dogs enjoying boiled deer liver. Big mistake, they followed me around for weeks after.
In restropect, it was a strange thing. As I dragged the deer out to the road, I saw its tracks and realized that it had been probably been standing there watching me screw around for 10 minutes. It could have gone anywhere, but took a path to the one spot where I had a shot. It was dumb luck, but I did not get buck fever, remembered to cock the hammer, I followed it in the scope until it stepped into the one good place for a shot, I squeezed, and remembered to aim low. And I had put in my time and paid my dues with many hours in the field. I have decided that deer hunting is not about luck, it does require some skill, but it is really about being worthy enough to receive what is sent to you by the Great Manitou.
The venison salamis were greeted with joy at many Christmas parties, and saturday morning backstraps and eggs have become the breakfast of choice. And I find myself haunting the crossbow counter at Cabelas so I can start hunting the bow season on October 1 and not have to wait until November 15.
Time for bed, the mystery of spring turkey season starts tomorrow at 0605. I suspect it will require more than two minutes ...
I moved back to Michigan in 1998, and promptly shot a doe the first time out because I was hunting with my fried Mike B., who is a wildlife biologist and set up our strategy. He then moved away and I went deerless for years. Fast forward to 2010. I vowed that this would be the year, but the night before the opener my stepdaughter decided that she wanted to try deer hunting. We actually saw three, but she became frozen solid by about 1000 and that was it for the opener. I hunted pretty diligently that season but saw nothing. When it was over, I was not ready to quit, and vowed to get a muzzleloader to extend the season into December. In Michigan our firearm season is November 15-30, and muzzleloader starts on December 2 and runs almost to Christmas.
The 2011 opener was the antithesis of my prior hunting. I had gotten to know Dave D., and he is one of the best hunters I know. He can find game anywhere and anytime he hunts and became my guide. I had a tack driving shotgun, excellent gear, and I had learned how to pick a stand that deer liked, and not one that I liked. And best of all, I had a muzzleloader. It was a lightly used Thompson encore that I had picked up over the summer, and it would be my fallback if the firearm season did not pan out. I even got load data and some sabots that looked like the gun should have been advertised in a field artillery forum rather than the "used guns for sale" website.
The 2011 firearm season was a bust. We hunted public land in SE Michigan. The opener had too few hunters to push deer, and fog. No one saw deer, but there was enough pressure to push them into the puckerbrush, unharvested corn on private lands, and the odd places that no one could get to without spooking them from a hundred yards out. We did stands, swamp hunts, ridge hunts, pincer movements, still hunts, and every other trick known to deer hunters to no avail. We did see one buck that jumped into the swamp rather than moving in one of the any other directions that would have offered a shot, and I missed a small buck that popped up in front of me as I was huddled in a fetal position in the rain trying to stick it out for just a few more minutes before throwing in the towel. The season ended with a whimper, and not even a sighting during the last week.
The muzzleloader season started the following Friday, and of course I was back at work trying to catch up from all the time I was not in the office. And there was another issue: despite my best intentions I had not done a thing with the muzzleloader other than go to Cabelas and have the helpful hunting guy point to stuff I needed. OK, I did have some powder charges weighed out, but had never even loaded the thing. I decided to sleep in on Saturday, but woke up at 0400 out of what had become habit. I thought about the muzzleloader sitting on the workbench and decided that it needed to be used otherwise my wife might start to question its purchase. The following timeline is true and accurate, and the events will be reported with integrity as they actually happened.
0500 decide to load the gun, and wonder how hard to actually push the sabot into the barrel. Is it all the way in? How hard are these things supposed to seat?
0600 breakfast, coffee, sloth, stumbling around trying to find gear. Take muzzleloader jiggery pokery out of shopping bag, look at it, etc.
0700 arrive at the state game lands. Note that the woods resemble a sea of blaze orange and there are more guys out with muzzleloaders than on the opening day of firearms season.
0705 Arrive at the one place where I had seen deer, only to find it filled with pickup trucks and guys with muzzleloaders.
0715 Legal shooting time begins. I am, of course, driving around aimlessly.
0730 I am still driving around looking for a pulloff that I can get the little fish car into without getting stuck in the 4 inches of new snow.
0745 Find a bare spot that I can pull into. A place I had never hunted.
0800 Finally start hunting after figuring out the primer thingy, reorganizing pack, locating accoutrements and possibles, and deciding which way to head in.
0801 Set off car alarm as I try to lock the car, letting every deer within miles know that something is up.
0802 work my way about 150 feet into the woods, get tangled in a mass of autumn olives. Really cloudy and dark, so decide to stand there for 15 minutes until it gets light enough to look for a proper stand. Only shooting lane is a narrow keyhole between two giant cedars down at the edge of a wooded swamp.
0802:30 Totally wishing I had not had that extra cup of coffee. Decided to wait it out a bit longer.
0803 Hear a noise, and turn to see a squirrel. Immediately notice a 6 point buck walking along the edge of the swamp behind said squirrel. Realize that buck may walk between the cedars. Gun up, hammer back, deer sashays into the dark opening about 30 yards away.
At this point, it was the strangest thing. It happened so fast that I had no chance to get buck fever. I squeezed the trigger, there was a recoil, and I see the deer go flying sideways and crumple into a heap. But there was no smoke! I thought that the primer had not ignited the charge, but there in front of me is a dead deer. I had not realized that Blackhorn 209 is a smokeless propellent.
0803:30 Violate every rule by not reloading and charging down to the now dead buck. It dawns on me that this is a nice buck, and my days of patterning my life after Escanaba in the moonlight are over. Pretty much have to sit down and stop hyperventilating for a couple minutes. A true 6 point with no brow tines and a big body. Not bad for the most heavily hunted public game land in the State of Michigan.
Tag deer, field dress deer, drag deer 75 feet to the road, and get the car which is only 100 feet further down the road. At this point it dawns on me. The little fish car is VW sportwagen with a panoramic sunroof and a teeny roof rack that can support about 150 lbs. This deer weighs more. I had honestly never considered that I would get to this point. Call wife for assistance and a big drop cloth, she is game but prefers to have nothing to do with this unless all other strategies fail. Finally realize that I can boost it in upside down with the old mouse-chewed vest put into service as a sacrificial garment to prevent leakage. Drive home in triumph, then on to deer processor. Call everyone on my cell phone, post to facebook, etc.
1200 Dogs enjoying boiled deer liver. Big mistake, they followed me around for weeks after.
In restropect, it was a strange thing. As I dragged the deer out to the road, I saw its tracks and realized that it had been probably been standing there watching me screw around for 10 minutes. It could have gone anywhere, but took a path to the one spot where I had a shot. It was dumb luck, but I did not get buck fever, remembered to cock the hammer, I followed it in the scope until it stepped into the one good place for a shot, I squeezed, and remembered to aim low. And I had put in my time and paid my dues with many hours in the field. I have decided that deer hunting is not about luck, it does require some skill, but it is really about being worthy enough to receive what is sent to you by the Great Manitou.
The venison salamis were greeted with joy at many Christmas parties, and saturday morning backstraps and eggs have become the breakfast of choice. And I find myself haunting the crossbow counter at Cabelas so I can start hunting the bow season on October 1 and not have to wait until November 15.
Time for bed, the mystery of spring turkey season starts tomorrow at 0605. I suspect it will require more than two minutes ...
Sunday, March 25, 2012
The long absence
This blog of sorts has been, uh, nonexistent for two years. Most of the folks I have links to abandoned me, with good reason. But it is only now that I can write. You see, the blog was about two things: 1) the odd corners of fly fishing, and 2) tormenting my sister. She passed away in July 2010 from an aneurysm, and almost two years later I am still pissed off about it. She was young (40), with no family history and the week before had run one of those warrior-women steeplechase things. It was sudden, and by the time I got to the hospital the transplant team had been called in. She helped a lot of people but that somehow is still little consolation.
What made it all the worse is that our last fishing trip together was perfect. We headed up into the mountains of north Georgia to a stream that is known as a great place to catch stocked rainbows on corn, but it also harbors giant browns that rise to a green drake hatch. We stole a bunch of flies from her husband's fly box, hiked in to the really wild part, set up on two perfect riffles, and waited. As the sun set the coffin flies (the spinner phase) started to flit about. I had no luck other than a brief glimpse of a set of massive jaws that sheared my 3x tippet, took the fly and descended back into the stygian depths. But that was not why we were there.
The real reason we went all the way up into the wilderness was to see a phenomenon that I had heard about but never seen: the fairies and the twinkies. They are real, but it's not what you think. The fairies are a firefly, and the twinkies are sort of a glow-worm that resides in the wet places along the stream. I have not looked them up, and there were no twinkies streamside that night, but as the woods became dark the fairies came out with a vengeance. Now Michigan fireflies are pretty tame: they fly around and blink on and off with sort of a yellowish light. I have seen synchronized flashing, but rarely, and have never bothered to think about them very much. Georgia fireflies are different. They maintain a constant light (no flashing), the light is an ethereal blue-green, and they stay low over the ferns. At one point, there were hundreds of them streaming down a hillside, all no more than 2 or three feet above ground. If you did not maintain rational thought, you could drift into an observation of hundreds of little Tinkerbell like beings all headed right at you. They were everywhere, and it was beautiful. And really spooky.
But the best part of the night was still to come, because I knew that my sister had this inane phobia about bears. Once in Wyoming, she saw a herd of black angus cows moving down a hillside and thought they were all black bears trying to eat her. The cows got close enough so that no normal person could not perceive their platonic cow-ness, and her response at that point was to scream louder and burrow under the gear in the back of the jeep. So I waited until she brought up the inevitable as it became dark enough to turn on the headlamps. This was the moment I had been waiting for, and decided that her fear should be quelled by objective biological facts.
Julie: I hope that there aren't any bears around here.
Me: Well Julie, I googled Georgia bear densities and there are about 2 per square mile in suitable habitat. So we have hiked through the territory of only, say, 6 to 8 of them.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
Me: Hey, I read a neat article about eastern cougar sightings. It seems that they may be recolonizing the appalachians. Western cats are moving into territories that have not been occupied for nearly a century.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
Me: You don't need to be frightened. Bears forage constantly because they subsist on small prey. Large prey are rare in their diet.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
This went on and on like the mighty Ganges until I thought she was going to clock me. Fortunately, we arrived back at the car and drove home sweaty and exhausted.
Damn, I miss her and I wish we had fished together more.
I did get her started, but distance and the usual constraints of modern life limited our trips together. And I will always remember her casting style that I described as "Sweetheart of the Rodeo".
The postscript to all this is that my Mom informed me that I was to lead her memorial service. Told her that I had no idea what to say. Her response was that I was a college professor and by definition always knew what to say. Among other things, I needed to write an obituary and put together a wee brochure for the guests. There was all the usual stuff you write, but the last page was blank and despite my Mom's confidence I truly knew not what to say there. I think I googled trout poems or something like that and stumbled across a poem by William Butler Yeats entitled "The Stolen Child", about a child who is taken by, of all things, the fairies. Aside from the relevance of the title, which pretty much described the situation to a T, I was struck by the last verse:
What made it all the worse is that our last fishing trip together was perfect. We headed up into the mountains of north Georgia to a stream that is known as a great place to catch stocked rainbows on corn, but it also harbors giant browns that rise to a green drake hatch. We stole a bunch of flies from her husband's fly box, hiked in to the really wild part, set up on two perfect riffles, and waited. As the sun set the coffin flies (the spinner phase) started to flit about. I had no luck other than a brief glimpse of a set of massive jaws that sheared my 3x tippet, took the fly and descended back into the stygian depths. But that was not why we were there.
The real reason we went all the way up into the wilderness was to see a phenomenon that I had heard about but never seen: the fairies and the twinkies. They are real, but it's not what you think. The fairies are a firefly, and the twinkies are sort of a glow-worm that resides in the wet places along the stream. I have not looked them up, and there were no twinkies streamside that night, but as the woods became dark the fairies came out with a vengeance. Now Michigan fireflies are pretty tame: they fly around and blink on and off with sort of a yellowish light. I have seen synchronized flashing, but rarely, and have never bothered to think about them very much. Georgia fireflies are different. They maintain a constant light (no flashing), the light is an ethereal blue-green, and they stay low over the ferns. At one point, there were hundreds of them streaming down a hillside, all no more than 2 or three feet above ground. If you did not maintain rational thought, you could drift into an observation of hundreds of little Tinkerbell like beings all headed right at you. They were everywhere, and it was beautiful. And really spooky.
But the best part of the night was still to come, because I knew that my sister had this inane phobia about bears. Once in Wyoming, she saw a herd of black angus cows moving down a hillside and thought they were all black bears trying to eat her. The cows got close enough so that no normal person could not perceive their platonic cow-ness, and her response at that point was to scream louder and burrow under the gear in the back of the jeep. So I waited until she brought up the inevitable as it became dark enough to turn on the headlamps. This was the moment I had been waiting for, and decided that her fear should be quelled by objective biological facts.
Julie: I hope that there aren't any bears around here.
Me: Well Julie, I googled Georgia bear densities and there are about 2 per square mile in suitable habitat. So we have hiked through the territory of only, say, 6 to 8 of them.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
Me: Hey, I read a neat article about eastern cougar sightings. It seems that they may be recolonizing the appalachians. Western cats are moving into territories that have not been occupied for nearly a century.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
Me: You don't need to be frightened. Bears forage constantly because they subsist on small prey. Large prey are rare in their diet.
Julie: ^&#^&$(&&%%!!!
This went on and on like the mighty Ganges until I thought she was going to clock me. Fortunately, we arrived back at the car and drove home sweaty and exhausted.
Damn, I miss her and I wish we had fished together more.
I did get her started, but distance and the usual constraints of modern life limited our trips together. And I will always remember her casting style that I described as "Sweetheart of the Rodeo".
The postscript to all this is that my Mom informed me that I was to lead her memorial service. Told her that I had no idea what to say. Her response was that I was a college professor and by definition always knew what to say. Among other things, I needed to write an obituary and put together a wee brochure for the guests. There was all the usual stuff you write, but the last page was blank and despite my Mom's confidence I truly knew not what to say there. I think I googled trout poems or something like that and stumbled across a poem by William Butler Yeats entitled "The Stolen Child", about a child who is taken by, of all things, the fairies. Aside from the relevance of the title, which pretty much described the situation to a T, I was struck by the last verse:
- Where the wandering water gushes
- From the hills above Glen-Car,
- In pools among the rushes
- That scarce could bathe a star,
- We seek for slumbering trout
- And whispering in their ears
- Give them unquiet dreams;
- Leaning softly out
- From ferns that drop their tears
- Over the young streams.
- Come away, O human child!
- To the waters and the wild
- With a faery, hand in hand,
- For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
And when the previous verse mentioned trout, I knew that that poem was so going in. And I read it more often than I care to admit, and I would so take Yeats fly fishing if he were still around.
So, I knew that some day I would fire up this blog, but that I would have to write about this before I wrote anything else. But I just couldn't. It was too sad. It still is, but I had a moment of epiphany. I realized that if Julie found out that I had neglected a perfectly good fly fishing blog for this long because I was still moping about, she would be pissed off, and probably more so than when I was tormenting her about bears. I can just imagine the lecture, and she would probably have clocked me over this and the bear story.
It is time to move on, and no serious stuff. The next story will be the annual hunting installment, and I guarantee hilarity and mirth. It will be about how the worst deer hunter in the world takes up muzzleloading.
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